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Start With Simple Stuff: Three Ways to Win Small, But Get Big Results

Posted On Jan 28, 2014 By Vito La Fata

If you want to gain momentum and improve your fitness, nutrition, strength, endurance or whatever you want to perfect, begin by setting goals that are worthwhile but highly achievable.

Master the basics.

Then practice the basics every day without fail. Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to greater achievements gained slowly over time.

When I’m coaching clients in fitness or business, I suggest working on one thing at a time so that they can gain some level of competency within that skill set before moving on.

This is a critical practice. It creates an easy way to track success and make progress. The feelings of accomplishment that come from small steps will push you to succeed.

We quit running after the eighth day because we’re still overweight. We give up on our business because we didn’t see the checks increase right away. We return to eating recklessly because our pants don’t instantly fit better. We don’t invest in personal development because the gratification is not instant.

Most of us never push through those initial hurdles to higher levels of success because we give up too soon.

Outlast the struggle, push past the frustration and harness the power of patience. And start with the small stuff.

What are some easy ways to start with the small stuff that could have big dividends in the end?

Eat protein every time you eat carbohydrates. This helps balance the blood sugar and insulin levels in the body cutting down on the free-floating sugar in your bloodstream, so you store less body fat.

Work out 10 minutes a day. Sure, I would opt more for 25-30 minutes a day of high intensity workouts. But, if you’re new to exercise, string together 42 days of 10-minute workouts that keep the intensity up and build the habit into your busy lifestyle. This is going to start leaning you out so that you can step up to bigger workouts without injury.

Read 15 minutes of personal development books a day to feed some new knowledge and mental skills into your life. You can’t outrun the limitations of your mindset and what you believe about yourself. Self-limiting beliefs are a prison. Why? Because, everyone runs to entertainment books to numb the mind. It’s pretty obvious that the entertainment-to-education ratio in our American society is skewed, leaving us with the wrong skillsets for life. Lower the entertainment, pump up the education and your life and income will soar.

Remember, you don’t hit a homerun without a lot of little hits at first; success in most things comes not from a gigantic stroke of fate, but from simple, incremental progress.

Be patient.

Everything worth having takes time.

If you want to grow, don’t try to win big, try to win small. You’re not swinging for a home run every time; just get on base.